


Highway to Hell

by falloutboiruto



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
Genre: Alternate Universe - Normal High School, Comedy, Crack, Family Bonding, Gen, Group chat, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Jealousy, Road Trips, Sibling Rivalry, Texting, boruto is written as having adhd in this, loosely inspired by goofy movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-11 19:04:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20551181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falloutboiruto/pseuds/falloutboiruto
Summary: Boruto, your not-so-unusual brand of teenage loser, hatches a scheme to get into a summer party that surely will boost him up to cool kid status in no-time with the help of his two fellow outcast friends Sarada and Mitsuki. The only obstacle is a fast approaching upcoming mandatory road tip with his (slightly)emotionally absent father Naruto and older foster brother Kawaki. Will Boruto survive said road trip despite being the both literally and figuratively under-appreciated middle child, and get home before the night of the party? His social life depends on it(or at least that's what he thinks...)!





	1. Asking nothing, leave me be

**Author's Note:**

> hey so. i'm doing this. no takebacks we write goofy movie AUs like men
> 
> also i want to clarify that not everything is as it seems in this chapter re: team 7's relationship to their old friend group, there just MIGHT be a twist coming up??? maybe??? idk??? ;)  

> 
> beta:d by @reaperduckling  
title from the song highway to hell....

Boruto tapped his pencil on his test in an erratic rhythm. Man, he wished that he could learn how to play drums over the summer, his pencil-tapping would probably improve so much from it. Also, right now Boruto was in a steady, yet boring, position of the higher lower middle of the high school food chain in his role as slightly unappreciated and ignored resident class clown. If he were a drummer, he’d surely rise to the very top of the ecosystem as the cool class clown who could play drums!

“Psst, Boruto?” Sarada(the teacher’s pet and unfortunately his best friend since they were kids) whispered out of the side of her mouth. “Stop tapping your pencil on the paper. It upsets _everyone_.”

“I’m not upset by it,” Mitsuki(a very strange boy who was also Boruto’s lifelong friend but like, actually loyal) said in a normal speaking voice, which made the heads of the entire class turn.

The teacher eyed them suspiciously.

“Oh, are we whispering?” Mitsuki asked, and went back to taking the test.

Boruto grumbled and tried to concentrate on the test. Geography, his old nemesis. It was the final test of the school year, too. If only he could get through this quick enough that he wouldn’t forget about the drums thing, but that would mean concentrating which was a bit of a tall order.

-

Having somewhat miraculously made it through to lunch, Boruto told his two friends about his scheme to become a drummer.

“I think you should try it, you’ll do great,” Mitsuki said in an expressionless voice that would’ve read as sarcastic had Boruto not known him well enough to know that Mitsuki was always extremely supportive(sometimes worryingly so) of his spur of the moment whimsical decisions.

Sarada, however, wasn’t quite as pleased.

“I foresee you turning playing the drums into a form of anger management and ruining the night’s rest of the entire neighborhood, Boruto,” she snarked.

“Does not! I just want to be cool and climb the social ladder.”

“Aren’t you already quite popular, though?” Mitsuki said.

“Not really? I wasn’t even invited to Inojin’s party to celebrate the summer break. I thought that he was still cool, but I guess not.”

“None of us were invited,” Sarada said, sounding wistful for a second, before perking up forcibly. “So you’re just as unpopular as us. That’s not so bad, isn’t it?”

“It kind of is, though.”

“How rude…” Sarada said warningly, pushing her slipping glasses farther up her nose. “Boruto, does your obsession with climbing the social ladder have something to do with _the incident?”_

“Sarada, it’s fine,” Mitsuki interjected, more to his food than anything else.

“All I’m saying is that maybe being popular at this school isn’t _worth it._ We were cast out and look how much better our lives are now! No shallow small talk, no more secrets-“

“_Sarada_, Boruto can be friends with whoever he wants,” Mitsuki said, as that put an end to the conversation. And it did.

_The incident _referred to a certain _happening_ that had happened several months earlier in the school year. Boruto and his two friends, Sarada and Mitsuki—the golden trio, just popular enough to pass under the radar almost completely. However, everything had changed when Mitsuki had let it slip in his blunt, Mitsuki-y way that he used to have a crush on a male celebrity(a famous TV reptile expert), and he had immediately found himself as the new school loser afflicted with social smallpox. Boruto and Sarada followed as they had been in proximity to the gay cooties since way back when, so now they only had each other. They still had a lot of fun together, but it did kind of suck only having two friends.

(If Boruto was a less dense person, he might’ve realized Sarada’s problem with his maybe slightly desperate attempts at social climbing right then and there. But he didn’t until much, _much_ later on.)

-

The school year ended disappointingly with a milquetoast assembly complete with a boring speech from the principal. Boruto and his friends parted ways with the promise to schedule a hangout later in their three-person group chat, which they certainly would follow through with since they had no other friends.

Bummer.

-

**Boruto Uzumaki:** ey guys I have an idea

**Boruto Uzumaki:** it’s a GREAT idea

**Mitsuki:** What is it?

**Boruto Uzumaki:** inojin is throwing a party soon. we weren’t invited bc we’re losers now. but we could….

**Boruto Uzumaki:** ….sNEAK IN to the party and show them we’re still cool

**Sarada Uchiha:** Why would you even care about impressing those buttfaces? They haven’t invited us to anything since the incident.

**Mitsuki:** I’m not sure that our old friends are included in the ‘buttface’ crowd. They still say hello to me every time they see me in school. Inojin sends me ‘memes’ every day. Maybe they’ve just been busy when you’ve seen them.

**Boruto Uzumaki:** THEY ARE NOT BUTTFACES and my plan is awesome

**Mitsuki:** Fair enough, I trust you. It does sound like fun. How do you propose we sneak into the party?

**Sarada Uchiha:** What, you’re just gonna get a ladder and sneak through a window?

**Boruto Uzumaki:** no!!!!

**Boruto Uzumaki:** ok well maybe yes

**Mitsuki:** Well, we are three people. We can carry a ladder together if we want to.

**Sarada Uchiha:** Ugh, more like two people. I’m not interested in impressing anyone like that.

**Mitsuki:** But don’t you want to hang out with Cho Cho and Sumire again? I thought you guys were close.

**Sarada Uchiha:** Let’s just say they haven’t spoken to me for a while.

**Mitsuki:** Are you sure? I just talked to them yesterday before the assembly. They asked about you.

**Boruto Uzumaki:** whatever sarada we’ll just get a two person ladder!!! we don’t need your help anyways. right mitsuki?

**Mitsuki**: Sure.

**Sarada Uchiha:** Ugh, with your luck you’ll probably fall off the ladder and die without me. I’ll go too.

**Boruto Uzumaki:** YAY

-

That evening, Boruto’s Dad, Naruto, had something to say (an uncommon occurrence as he usually just ignored Boruto and winced whenever they’d make eye contact).

“So, uh, Boruto…. Do you want to come on a summer road trip with me? Hima and your Mother will be going to your grandfather’s house, so I thought…” Dad asked, awkwardly, like even talking to Boruto was a chore. “A trip, just us guys. A guys’ trip. To celebrate the end of the school year! Like guys do.”

“Sounds boring!” Boruto said flippantly, but on second thought, it did sound quite fun. They could actually talk for once, but somehow it was very important to Boruto that no-one knew that he craved attention from his father.

“I know that I work a lot, there’s just so much work to do at the city council, so I just thought….”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll come; _whatever._ So, when is it?”

“We’re leaving tomorrow! Tell Kawaki that he should start packing too, will you?”

“What?”

Boruto’s jaw dropped to the ground. His foster brother, who _smoked cigarettes _and had _facial piercings_, would be coming along? To be fair, Kawaki was actually sort of ok once you decoded his obnoxious sarcastic front(which Boruto still struggled with), but Boruto still hadn’t gotten over the time he had come home late and walked in on Kawaki and Dad watching a movie together in the living room. _Alone_. The way Dad had said:

_“Now, Kawaki, this movie was about the dangers of smoking, what did you think? I have some discussion questions I want you to answer-Oh, hi Boruto.”_

_Boruto had been flabbergasted. His Dad, trying to be positive guidance to his son (that wasn't Boruto? Not that he was jealous at all)? He had stormed up the stairs and laid in his bed, face down into the pillow, trying to forget about the look on Kawaki’s face before he had noticed Boruto’s sudden presence. He had looked annoyed like always of course but underneath it all: Sort of happy. Dad looked happy too like he never did around Boruto._

_Boruto resented that._

-

**Boruto Uzumaki:** uh guys when’s the party

**Sarada Uchiha:** It’s this Saturday. And before you ask, because I know you will: today is Tuesday.

**Boruto Uzumaki:** oh good! I have to go on this stupid roadtrip with my dad and STUPID kawaki but it’s only a couple of days so I should be back in time

**Mitsuki:** Hm. That does actually seem like something you'd want? You always complain about him not being home.

**Boruto Uzumaki:** NO

**Boruto Uzumaki:** i don’t want to spend time with him WHY WOULD I WANT TOOOO

**Sarada Uchiha:** I think it would be good for you to actually try to get along with your Dad. And Kawaki isn’t that bad, he won't kill you. But get back in time for the party, will you?

**Boruto Uzumaki: **kawaki MIGHT thooo

-

“Why are you looking at me like I’m going to kill you, Boruto?” Kawaki said, looking back on Boruto from his place in the passenger seat of their car. “_Relax_.”

“I’m not!” Boruto said, tapping his fingers in a rapid rhythm on the back seat. “I am relaxed!”

“Stop tapping your fingers, then,” Dad said, taking a left turn to get on the high-way. “This is going to be a long journey, and it’s bound to get annoying eventually.”

This hurt Boruto’s feelings more than he’d care to admit, so in shock, he stopped. Almost immediately, his bounds of restless energy decided to channel itself through him involuntarily bouncing his legs on the car carpet instead.

What Boruto could see of his Dad’s face through the rearview mirror still looked annoyed. Boruto kind of couldn’t help it though.

“Hrmph!” Boruto scoffed and curled up against the car door, folding his body in on itself. Through the window, he could see the open fields pass him by quicker and quicker as the car accelerated. The scenery was beautiful, at least. Shame they’d be stuck in the car for most of it, though.

“Look on the bright side, Boruto!” Dad said. “We’re headed to a ninja theme park! You love ninjas, don’t you?”

“Huh? Maybe when I was like, eight?”

Dad winced.

“Well… it’ll still be fun!”

“Heh,” Kawaki snickered. “I wasn’t around for that. Did he do that weird goose run too?”

"Yes, he did," Dad said.

“Did not!” Boruto protested, and sought sweet sweet escape from his embarrassment hell by venting in the group chat.

**Boruto Uzumaki: **i didn’t do the ninja run when i was little right???? dad is lying about it to kawaki to maliciously hurt my reputation

**Sarada Uchiha:** You sure did.

**Mitsuki:** That brings back memories. I did it with you. It was friendly fun, and nothing to be embarrassed by.

**Sarada Uchiha:** Oh yeah! It was adorable!

**Mitsuki:** It was good exercise, too.

**Boruto Uzumaki:** GUYS

-

At the ninja theme park: Dad and Kawaki riding a rollercoaster together as Boruto sourly watched on the ground below with his hands in his pockets. They had asked him to ride it with them, but he had refused.

**Boruto Uzumaki:** this sucks they keep ignoring me

**Sarada Uchiha:** Well, try to talk to them more then?

**Boruto Uzumaki:** no

-

At the ninja theme park: Dad and Kawaki eating cotton candy as Boruto furiously typed on his phone.

**Boruto Uzumaki:** THEY’RE EVEN SHARING THE COTTON CANDY

**Mitsuki:** Maybe you can share the cotton candy with them too if you just ask?

**Boruto Uzumaki:** but that would make me look jealous

**Sarada Uchiha:** ….

**Mitsuki:** That’s because you are. It’s very obvious.

**Sarada Uchiha:** Look, family issues don’t go away by just ignoring them. Just talk to your Dad, please.

_√Seen by Boruto at 03.04 pm_

_-_

“Aw man, that was the most fun I’ve had in years!” Dad said as they were walking towards their car again.

“Yeah, sure was,” Boruto said with a voice dripping with intended sarcasm.

“I actually had a lot of fun,” Kawaki said, not seeming to pick up on (or just ignoring) Boruto’s tone of voice. “Thanks, Naruto.”

Dad chuckled and ruffled Kawaki’s hair. Which made Boruto’s soul leave his body, and he promptly informed the group chat about it.

**Sarada Uchiha:** You’re being overdramatic, Boruto. Please, please just talk to him.

**Sarada Uchiha:** Also, I don’t think it’s fair at all to begrudge Kawaki of a good relationship with your Dad.

**Mitsuki:** I agree with Sarada. I’ve read that teenagers like us need male role models.

**Boruto Uzumaki:** but does it have to be MY male role model?????

“Why are you just standing there texting, Boruto?” Dad said suddenly. “Get in the car, we’ve got to get to the camping site before dark-“

“Why don’t you just leave me here and go there with Kawaki, then?” Boruto bristled.

“You know, that sounds good to me,” Kawaki said, crossing his arms. “You’ve been nothing but sulky all day and you keep glaring at me.”

“Now, boys,” Naruto huffed in an attempt to calm the situation. Boruto also huffed and made a big show of flouncing into the car while not quitting texting for a moment.

**Boruto Uzumaki:** AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

_√Seen by Mitsuki, Sarada Uchiha at 05.38 pm_

Dad sighed and turned on the radio.


	2. On my way to the promised land

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, i wrote some more! :D I started studying at college recently so that's why I can't write as much as I used to, but I still got this done! :D

Later, at the campsite, Dad and Kawaki were trying to put up the tent. Boruto sat on a tree stump, sulking angrily. His friends had stopped replying in the group chat, probably mostly because all he’d posted for the last hour or so were key smashes.

“Do you want some food? We’re gonna grill some hot dogs,” Dad asked.

“No,” Boruto replied, furiously typing yet another ‘_asdggjnfhjn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_’ in the chatbox as he spoke his one-word sentence.

“Come on, you need food. You can’t eat texts,”

“Of course I can’t eat texts-“ Boruto looked up with derision, just to be met with the sight of Dad chuckling nervously. It had been a joke. A feeble attempt at a Dad Joke(™).

“Look, I don’t know what I did wrong here. You said you wanted to come on this trip, but now you seem like you don’t even want to talk to me.”

Boruto shuffled nervously. Should he just say it?

"I thought it'd be only you and me when I agreed to it, though."

“Uh, ok. But Kawaki is part of this family too, and I want to spend time with both of you.”

“Do you, though?” Boruto snapped back. “You’ve just been spending time with _him_, and not me, the entire trip!”

“But every time I ask you to do something with us, your refuse,” Dad said, softly. “I don’t know how to make it clearer that I want to spend time with you too.”

Boruto squirmed uncomfortably.

“But you think I’m annoying,” he said, looking down on the ground, shuffling his now wet sandal-clad feet in the evening-dewy grass. “With the finger-tapping. You think it’s annoying and I can’t help it. I can barely concentrate in school anymore and my grades are slipping because of it and my old friends won’t talk to me anymore and I just feel so _lost_-“

Dad sat down next to him on the tree stump, awkwardly, _gingerly_. Like he was afraid of doing or saying something wrong.

“I don’t think you’re annoying. I want you to talk to me,” Dad said.

And so, in the first time in forever, Boruto did.

-

Later, they went back to the main campsite where Kawaki was indeed grilling hot dogs. They looked a bit singed, but Boruto ate one almost immediately.

“Hey,” Kawaki said. "You know, I sort of know how to play the drums. I used to be in a band, y' see. I can teach you the basics some time."

“How did you know I want to learn the drums?” Boruto answered suspiciously after scarfing down said hot dog.

“Because you kept talking about it under your breath the evening before we left on this road trip?”

“_Oh_."

Dad beamed at both of them.

“You know,” he said. “I say we go back to the ninja theme park tomorrow, for some more fun. What do you say, Kawaki?”

Kawaki shrugged as nonchalantly as humanly possible but it looked like he was at least sort of smiling. Maybe this trip wouldn’t be so bad after all.

-

**Boruto Uzumaki**: ey….. sorry for sort of going MIA for a few days but i talked to my dad and we actually ended up having a lot of fun after that. kawaki isn’t so bad, either.

**Sarada Uchiha:** Told you so :P

**Mitsuki:** How nice. Will you be home for Saturday night?

**Boruto Uzumaki:** YAEEEYYYY

-

Saturday night came around, and Boruto stood in front of his mirror in his room at home, meticulously fixing his hair with gel. He had no idea if he wanted to make it medium spiky or extra spiky for the occasion.

“I say you go for extra spiky,” an unexpected teenage boy-voice called.

Boruto swiftly turned around and was met by the sight of Sarada and Mitsuki sitting on his windowsill. But Boruto’s room was on the second floor….

“We’ve already gotten a ladder,” Sarada giggled. “You should see the look on your face.”

-

They walked to Inojin’s house trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. But they did get some weird looks, as carrying a big ladder was a bit out of the ordinary.

“This is going to be so much fun!” Boruto cheered.

“Yeah, we’ll see,” Sarada said.

“You don’t seem very enthusiastic, Sarada," Mitsuki said.

“Well… it’s just that none of these guys have ever talked to us since the incident. I just think that’s it kind of weird trying to win them back.”

“You think it’s insensitive to me?” Mitsuki said, looking bemused." As I've said, our old friends still talk to _me_. I'm pretty sure that means that they're still friends with you guys too. I’m not sure you deciding just that for yourself and just talking over me is that great either.”

Sarada, suddenly quite red-faced, looked away for a moment.

“Sorry,” she said. “We’ll know soon enough, won’t we?”

“Yeeeeah!” Boruto proclaimed as they arrived at their destination. It was finally ladder-climbing time!

-

After climbing the ladder and sneaking into the top floor, they sneaked down the stairs and came down to the kitchen. All of their old friends were there, and Mitsuki immediately blended into the crowd, while Boruto awkwardly stood on the last flight of the stairs just kind of taking in the scene.

“I’ll go talk to Cho Cho,” Sarada said. “See ya!”

She too disappeared into the crowd, and Boruto was alone. But not for long….

“Oh, Boruto! Hi!” Inojin said while approaching him and sipping a non-alcoholic beverage, sounding genuinely… happy? “It’s been too long!”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Boruto stumbled out. “Wait, I thought I wasn’t invited to this party?”

Inojin tilted his head while furrowing his brows in confusion.

"What? Of course, you were!"

“But you didn’t invite me?”

“We’re friends, you’re always invited to my parties.”

Boruto backed up. “But you and your friend group haven’t spoken to me, Sarada or Mitsuki since… you know...”

“_My _friend group?” Inojin balked. “_You guys_ were the ones to leave the big group chat! _You guys_ were the ones that just assumed that we weren’t friends anymore and kept glaring at us every time we even tried to approach you! I’ve talked to Mitsuki every day since he was outed, thank you very much, and even _he_ thinks you guys are being silly! None of the gang were involved in spreading that rumor! Did you really think that we were that fickle?”

Boruto felt like the world had been turned upside down. His gaze flickered to where Sarada was standing next to Cho Cho and Sumire, from the looks of it was getting the exact same yell-explanation. Then, he looked over to Mitsuki who was comfortably sitting on the couch next to Iwabe and Wasabi and showing them something on his phone (from experience Boruto could presume that it was a reptile pet tour Youtube video).

“Oh god,” Boruto said. "We even snuck into this party using a ladder."

“Yeah, we noticed,” Inojin chuckled. “Denki filmed it.”

“It was pretty funny,” Shikadai filled in, apparently having eavesdropped the entire time. “To think you went through all that trouble even though you had assumed that we were homophobes.”

“Jeez, I’m sorry…” Boruto said. “This was all a big misunderstanding.”

“Eh, don’t sweat it,” Shikadai shrugged nonchalantly.

“Literally! You look like you’re about to pass out!” Inojin said. “Zing!”

-

Later, Boruto got a feeling. A feeling of perhaps having done something wrong. Mitsuki had said that Sarada just deciding things without consulting him re: him being outed was ‘not that great either’, so maybe Boruto had done something not-great as well.

So, he asked Mitsuki about how he felt now about having been outed.

“I thought everyone already knew. It wasn’t like I was trying to hide it,” Mitsuki answered. “I personally see gender as irrelevant, and it surprised me that it was that controversial.”

He shrugged and reached for another sip of water from the glass he was holding. “I don’t think being outed ruined any friendships worth keeping, anyway.”

“Yeah but… I’m just worried that you somehow thought that I blamed you for ‘making us unpopular’ in some way?”

Mitsuki winced but seemed to try his best at making eye contact this time for once (his gaze landed somewhere on Boruto’s nose).

“I have never, even for a second, thought that. It’s very important to me that you understand this,” Mitsuki said. “Some people stopped talking to me, but you didn’t. That’s all the proof I need.”

A moment passed.

“Anyways, how long have we known each other?” he added. “I already know that you’re very attention-seeking.”

“Hey!” Boruto protested until he noticed that Mitsuki was honest-to-god _laughing_ at him.

“You’re so predictable sometimes,” Mitsuki chuckled. “But most of the time you’re the opposite. The contrast is very interesting.”

Boruto didn’t know what to answer, but Mitsuki’s laughter proved to be quite infectious. Sarada joined them later, and things felt… not like before _the incident_, not quite, but maybe even better.

-

Boruto snuck home late at night and was met by his Dad sitting on the couch, waiting for him.

“Um,” Boruto said, shuffling nervously on the spot.

“Well, you don’t smell like booze so I’ll let this one time go. I won’t tell your Mother this time,” Dad said, not entirely dead-serious. “But there’s something I want to know.”

Boruto braced himself.

“What did you guys need the ladder for?”

“Nothing,” Boruto sighed, not knowing if he felt relieved or not. “It’s… it’s a long story.”

The End

**Author's Note:**

> please leave me kudos and comments if you like this! :D


End file.
